It's almost like Sony learned from it's mistakes in past.
It's not like PS4 has done anything groundbreaking; what Sony did made sense. They evolved their product linearly. It's the next iteration of the PS3. It's just better, it's "next gen".

MS just went full retard. I don't understand. They didn't evolve, they made a new creature, and it's a total Frankenstein(like windows 8). Instead of killing little boys in the woods, it's killing consumer's wallets right in front of them.

I have to imagine the overall state of the company has humbled them, and the extreme mess that unfolded on PSN was a wakeup call. They needed to quit thinking people will buy from them on name alone, and offer a superior product with consumer friendly terms.
MS undoubtedly thought they had not changed, and could go the way they did with ease. It may not matter in the end, and Xbox one will almost definitely sell very well, but this move from Sony may have won more back than MS could have predicted.

Apple learned from Sony's mistakes in the past, when Sony refused to cannibalise their own recording business and produce the goddamn mp3 player that everybody was asking for. Apple released Sony's goddamn mp3 player, killed Sony's Walkman business, and then they released the phone that finally killed the mp3 player (before everyone else did). It's about seeing where technology is heading, and produce the right stuff even if it's in competition with your own products.

Now Microsoft is cannibalising their gamer market by producing a gaming console that's slightly inferior to the competition, at a slightly higher price, to get in b4 Apple's iTV kills the TV. It's good thinking: the market has been crying out for something that simplifies TV and consolidates cable and internet video and PVR (and who knows, maybe even video telephony) and whatnot into one easy to use device. Microsoft's one serious mistake, however, was to attach it to a hideously expensive gaming console with features that no one wants (always-on DRM and leeching money off the used games market).

So yeah, Microsoft correctly sees where technology is heading (I assume), they just don't realise that gamers are easily pissed off and non-gamers won't buy the most expensive gaming console.

It's not like PS4 has done anything groundbreaking; what Sony did made sense. They evolved their product linearly. It's the next iteration of the PS3. It's just better, it's "next gen".

What? The last two times they made an expensive exotic machine that is hard to program for. This time they took a game-pc with standard x86 and a unified single 8GB memory. All this stuff is proven technology and easy to use and understand.